Category Archives: Sustainability and Resiliency

Moosewood Restaurant is pleased to invite you to a special screening of

Can You Dig This

a documentary about the guerilla gardeners of South LA

at Cinemapolis, Dec. 3rd at 7 pm

Can You Dig This follows an urban gardening movement taking root in South LA, where people are planting to transform their neighborhoods and are changing their own lives in the process. Watch the trailer here.

Co-sponsored by GreenStar Community Projects, Groundswell, Building Bridges and Natural Leaders Initiative, we will host a pre-screening reception at 6:30 (with food by Moosewood) plus a talk-back on farming, gardening and food sovereignty with leaders in our community after the show.

On May 13, 202 people attended a Community Forum to learn about Collective Impact processes creating big successes in various communities, and possible “big results” we might want to work on in Tompkins County.

41 organizations asked to be added to the Building Bridges Coalition list *

100+ new people have joined the Building Bridges Network listserve96% of you said you learned more about Collective Impact
96% of you said that CI is a direction that we should pursue as a community
97% of you said the time was worthwhile
89% of you said you would do your work differently as a result of the time we spent together.

Once again, a big THANK-YOU to

GreenStar staff support, use of The Space and coffee, tea, fruit salad, yogurt and pastries

MRC for the mini-bagels

GIAC for the cheese, crackers and cookies

Ithaca Bakery for the pastries

Moosewood Restaurant for the Brownies and Vegan Chocolate Cake

CCE staff for stuffing packets

Park Foundation for supporting this intro to Collective Impact

*If you would like your organization added, please contact Kirby Edmonds at 607/277-3401

You are invited to a half-day Community Forum
sponsored by the Building Bridges Initiative to:

get an update on the activities that have been going on in the community that are moving towards the vision we developed together

explore “Collective Impact” as a process for achieving big results toward the vision

Much has happened in the community since the first Building Bridges gathering back in November, 2011, but we still have a ways to go.

The lists of activities and possible big results in the attached flyer are only examples of the things we can explore together as we move forward and are not meant to be exhaustive.

Please respond by April 30th to let us know whether or not you can come to the forum (email- tfckirby@aol.com, phone: 277-3401).

You are receiving this invitation because you are an important community leader.

Please note: If you forward this message to someone else you’d like to invite, please emphasize that we do need to get RSVPs so we can plan for food and materials.

On behalf of the Building Bridges Planning Group, we hope you can come.

The “Building Bridges” initiative is a collaborative effort of The Dorothy Cotton Institute, the Whole Community Project, Sustainable Tompkins, CCE Environment Program, CCE Green Jobs Program, Ithaca College Commit to Change Initiative, Groundswell, Natural Leaders Initiative, the Multicultural Resource Center, Alternatives Federal Credit Union, Center for Transformative Action, Dryden Solutions, GreenStar Community Projects, the Sustainability Center, Get Your Green Back Tompkins, Cayuga Medical Center, Local First Ithaca, and others, to build, support and maintain a local movement in the Tompkins County region to create a “socially just and ecologically sound local economy”

Freeing Ourselves From Systems that Weaken & Divide Us

Through our scientific and technological genius, we have made of this world a neighborhood and yet we have not had the ethical commitment to make of it a brotherhood. But somehow, and in some way, we have got to do this…We are tied together in the single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality …whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.

Delivered by Martin Luther King Jr. over 45 years ago as an impassioned call for “Remaining Awake through a Great Revolution”, these words seem more relevant than ever to the linked economic, environmental and social calamities we face today. Our global economy and its effects on nearly every facet of our lives is increasingly seen as a root of these problems. With a warming climate and epic failures like the BP oil disaster and financial crisis, this system and its structures are looking catastrophically flawed and outdated. The “economic genius” of Frankensteinian creations like derivatives has turned our world economy into a shell game, with perhaps the worse yet to come.

Communities have become ground zero for a resource extraction model seeking to maximize short-term profits for distant stock holders while externalizing as many costs as possible. Those “externalities” include many of our own who are left behind as the divide between the haves and multiplying have-nots grows. Making matters worse, the reach and influence of the too-big-to-fail juggernauts responsible for these crises extends deep into our systems of governance, playing no small part in the recent government shut-down.

At the same time, a growing number of communities like our own are grappling with how to sustain basic civic infrastructure, including water, transportation, health, social services and educational systems. Put into place decades or centuries ago, many are now crumbling and we find ourselves without adequate means to maintain or replace them. Extreme events like Hurricanes Irene and Sandy, expected to increase in frequency, are also revealing a lack of resilience in our support systems and compromised landscapes.

We seem to be caught in a destructive feedback loop, unable to break free from a system that is continually reinforcing itself (with the help of bailouts and subsidies) while weakening our communities and endangering the planet. Some are wondering what alternatives might exist – how can we reinvent a new economy that serves, not consumes us?

You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete. -Buckminster Fuller

Unseen by some, another great revolution, or “reimagining” is already occurring. It is rising from communities like our own, leveraging the power of We to solve intractable problems collectively. Here are some signs of and guideposts for this emergent and hopeful movement.Continue reading →

Hello esteemed community-colleagues. We very much hope you will be able to join the next “Feeding Our Future” conversation on August 15 at GIAC. We’ll hear from leaders of several important food justice initiatives in the community, and share insights, innovations, information and ideas for building a food system that serves EVERYBODY in our community. Please do share this message with others in your organization and neighborhood. Thank you so much!

About

Our mission is to engage people of African descent in critical food and farm-related issues that directly impact our health, communities, and economic security.

Mission

Our mission is to build networks and community support for growers in both urban and rural settings. Through education and advocacy around food and farm issues, we nurture collective black leadership to ensure we have a seat at the table. Find our more today at http://www.blackfarmersconf.org/

Company Overview

The Black Farmers and Urban Gardeners Conference is presented by Black Urban Growers (BUGS), an organization of volunteers committed to building networks and community support for growers in both urban and rural settings. Through education and advocacy around food and farm issues, we nurture collective black leadership to ensure we have a seat at the table.

Based in the New York City Metropolitan area, Black Urban Growers’ founding members include representatives from the following grassroots groups, non-profit organizations as well as individuals from our communities:

In November of 2009, Black Urban Growers began organizing and hosting a series of community events with the purpose of starting a conversation around food: Where does it come from? Who is providing it? Why don’t we see more black farmers at the farmers markets? What is the relationship between our individual health and the health of our communities, and why does it matter?Beginning with a fundraiser event in February of 2010, followed by a Community Forum that April, we’ve been inviting more and more people from our communities to engage in the conversation and together connect the dots between the health of our farmers and our collective health as a community.At the first annual Black Farmers and Urban Gardeners Conference in November 2010, more than 500 attendees began building a national network that includes producers, consumers, and everyone in between in creating sustainable solutions. This vital project continued at the second annual conference in October 2011.